Strip away wants.  Strip away desire, strip away dreams and hopes.  When you peel it back, such things are luxuries only possible when you have first guaranteed your survival.  Survival is everything, and in its pursuit, even the self may need to be stripped away for the survival of the species.  Life, of her and her people, was nothing to the aliens if it was not useful.  So she would be useful, she would be obedient, and she would survive.  Under the control of the new rulers of her w...